US Road Trip Epilog: 11th July 2005

Being back in Beatrice can only mean one thing - back to
Carriage Motors for some expert attention. As well as heading-up the
Riviera Owners Association, Sean Cahill is the Service Manager here so I know it's in good hands. I wrote out a list of things I'd like them to look at last night, and I think it was a bit more than Sean was expecting. Oops.

First stop from Carriage Motors is Leach Radiator Repair. I'd warned Sean that the radiator may need attention but the guy there shoots a digital thermometer at it and pronounces it fit and healthy. That's a real relief, as it wouldn't be easy to replace or repair. I think it may have been working too hard with the fan clutch on its way out and, with that replaced, is now back to normal.

Back at Carriage Motors I spend the day reading whilst the other problems are attended to:

The transmission fluid leak is traced to exactly the same place it's always leaked - the cooling pipes into the radiator. If I ever get back to Utah I think I'll force-feed transmission fluid into the guy who hacksawed-off the original pipes.

The brakes grabbing when cold is due to sticking wheel cylinders. These parts would need an extra day to fit and, as the problem isn't that bad, I'll leave them as they are for the moment.

The groaning from the power steering is cured by flushing and replacing the fluid.

The feeble and noisy aircon is due to it having been messed-with in the past. Sean actually has to drive home to get one of his original Riviera manuals so that they can return the system back to the way it should be. It still isn't that cold - there's a part called the receiver drier (if I know nothing about cars, I know even less about aircon systems) that will need replacing when I can find one - but at least the rest of the system is back to original now.

The total bill is $330, which I guess isn't surprising since they've been working on it all day. Half of that is for new parts for the aircon as well. I'm just relieved that the radiator doesn't need repairing.

US Postal Service vans or, as they're now known in the Riviera, 'racing cars'. One overtook us on an Interstate a few weeks back, which Alex found highly amusing and insists on reminding me about every time we see one.

In the evening Alex and I try The Little Bar, where everyone's very friendly and interested in what we're doing, before returning to the 5th Street Tavern and another dose of Bob's anecdotes (almost all of which are unrepeatable) and advice on where to visit. We also try a 'red beer' - roughly one part tomato juice to four parts beer. This is supposed to be a great hangover cure, and is actually a lot nicer than it sounds.